PROBLEM OF THE HERO Film Review

Soul Stirring...

They are two Sons of the South. They are both literary giants. One is Black; the other is White. The White man is older and well established— a university professor besides being a much published playwright. The Black man is younger. His novel has had enough success to plague him with a $6000 tax bill (in 1940’s money).

The two men have great respect for each other. That respect inspired their initial collaboration on an adaptation of the novel for the stage. Now they are meeting in New York as the famed Broadway director, Orson Welles, rehearses the cast and bends them and the script to his seemingly tyrannical will.

The novel is Native Son. The Black man is its author, Richard Wright. The White man is playwright and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Paul Green.

They are friends— of sorts. What sort? Early on we learn that Richard Wright has recently married—- Paul Green wasn’t invited to the wedding. Paul Green calls Richard Wright “Richard”. Richard Wright calls Paul Green “Mr. Green”.

Richard Wright has been at the Broadway rehearsals since Day 1. Paul Green has just arrived, and assumes that the change in the script’s ending was the work of Orson Welles. Green is wrong—- it was a change that came from the depths of Wright’s soul.

Lighting and Sparse Settings Magnify THE PROBLEM OF THE HERO Power

We are there in the darkened Broadway theater in a ring side seat for the intellectual Battle Royale that ensues. Even with only the dim light of a cigarette and occasional lighter flash, we see Wright.

More, with every pitch perfect line delivery by actor J. Mardrice Henderson playing Wright, we feel the effort he requires to keep his roiling rage within.

For most of the film there is little visual distraction from just the two of them and their war of words. Wright had unilaterally seized control of the script to ensure it captures the reality of Native Son’s protagonist, Bigger Thomas. Wright’s certitude that his lived experiences as a Black man enables him — and only him—to get it right. Green, whose literary corpus grew from a wellspring of empathy for what would have then been called “The Plight of the Black Man”, cannot brook an ending for the presumed White Broadway audience that leaves the story’s central character, Bigger Thomas, as an unreformed beast. They lock heads. Eventually their friendship of sorts lies in ruin— a deep loss for both.

From the darkened theater seats and tiny backstage spaces we learn of the context for this moment. Train rides in Jim Crow south are re-enacted. Wright needing to find workarounds of racist NY hotel clerks is examined under a re-enactment spotlight too. Perhaps feeling the weight of destroying a friendship he values, Wright confesses how he once burnt his family home down. Perhaps feeling familiar twinges of shame about Whiteness, Green shares his account of how he fecklessly stood guard against his cousin’s KKK cohort out to attack Wright. These moments of truth are distinctly brightly lit— with each confiding to a cast member of their opposite race.

Skillfully Catapults Us From Our Comfort Zones

For this writer, a White woman who—unlike the filmmakers—first read Native Son in a NYC High School class back in the day, The Problem of the Hero is akin to a short course intensive in racial literacy. More, this is a film that makes two men so real we feel we know them deeply. We experience how each is deeply unsettled by their friendship meltdown, and find ourselves deeply unsettled too. Like this writer, you may find yourself craving a third or more viewing.